Today, Dan Waldschmidt, sales strategist and author of the EdgyConversations blog, shares a hard-earned lesson. And, the worst thing was, his own excitement was the cause of this horrible mishap.

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“Let's make it happen….” Standing up from the side of the boardroom table, the General Counsel of a Fortune 100 company reached out his hand for me to shake.

After months of whale hunting, I had managed to land a multi-million dollar project with the client of my dreams. The commission alone would be a million dollars.

I was beyond excited. So excited I missed a very important point. The deal wasn't really done. The client was given me the chance to close the deal. I handed the “deal” off to our project management team and jumped into the next big thing.

It was a disaster. The right paperwork never got signed. The deal points were screwy. And the tech team bungled the delivery of data.

Why? I didn't take the time to make sure the deal got finished. I expected my team to “figure it out.” I was busy trying to close new business when I hadn't taken the time to make sure my team had everything they needed to impress the client.

What I ended up figuring out is that the details matter in a big way

By the time I got involved back in the deal, I looked like fool in front of my client. They decided to choose a different company to solve their problems and I ended up with a million less dollars in my pocket.

An expensive lesson.

Dan Waldschmidt is at war with conventional business strategy. To learn more about his mission to empower millions of high-performers all over the globe, visit www.EdgyConversations.com